340 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book i.

to rally, for the day was lost, they knew, but togain the water. So at our repulse, they dismountedfrom their horses, and sat down on the grass. TheMahometans ascended the hillock, and going roundthrew down the king’s standard. No Christianhand would have dared to do it; and there theysat mute and stupified, making no resistance.” Butthere must have been something in their eyes thatprotected them; yet they were only a few. It wasthe whole royal party made prisoners. The king,his brother, Eenaud of Petra, the Lord of Gebail,were among them; and young Thoron, the GrandMaster of the Templars, and several Hospitallersand Templars. But Gardiner, and his choicest ofknights, had cut their way to liberty, or perishedin the attempt. Yet though the slaughter hadbeen great, the number of prisoners was great too,including nearly all the infantry, that had refusedto fight from the very first. Not so much thatthey were traitors or cravens, but they declared itimpossible for them from the heat and thirst. Ofthe fifty thousand Christians, scarce one thousandescaped . 1 Never had the Franks, since their inva-sion of Palestine, suffered any such defeat. Saladin

1 Arab. Chron., 199.